Brooklyn based record label Let’s Play House gives way to their second solo EP of Fantastic man aka Mic Newman on the label. Heartbreaker EP packs a lot of soul, combined with the smooth, soft atmosphere this makes a slow-burning deep house drop that eases the mind. When it comes to building solid groovers, this guy is indeed pretty fantastic.
The New York label Let’s Play House was founded in 2011 by magazine editor Nik Mercer, DJ/producer Jaques Renault and was set up in affiliation with “Rapture’s Throne of Blood” label manager James Friedman. The label releases monthly and has a fair list of DJ celebrities on their record roster thus far. The tracks vary per release from Deep House to Techno and from Ambient to Indie.
Fantastic Man, who resides in Melbourne, is a familiar name in the global sentimental Deep House scene. Although his releases have not been getting as much attention as from his own name Mic Newman, Fantastic Man’s releases are set on compilation EPs where he is put next to an impressive list of current leaders of the newschool Deep House like Max Graef, Medlar, Ejeca, Bicep and Brothers Rice and on labels like Melbourne Deepcast and Wolf Music. Next to that his solo releases have been picked up worldwide and charted by Jimpster and Frits Kalbrenner to name a few. On top of this his EP “Plastic Fantastic” on the Detroit imprint Kolour LTD reached the first spot on the renowned Juno Top Sellers chart. His first EP on the Let’s Play House imprint is called “It’s Essential” and artists like MANIK and Pleasurekraft fell for it immediately.
This four-headed EP “Heartbreaker” is not too far away from Newman’s key sound. The title track tunes in to an eighties synth pop and crunch feel. It stretches out with a diva vocal and stays flat across the grid, but is nonetheless very full musically, and strikes a balanced sound between a club track and a chiller for listening at home.
“Zero” opens with a summer vibe keys loop sampled from “Sunrays” by The Other People Place by the Sunrays. Consequently it softly mutates into a warm and positive groove. When the beat lays low somewhere midway the track, he eases the groove with a cut-up vocal and pushes a little white noise to announce the beat, finding its way in again through the end.
“Keep Out” commences with a typical old-school nineties US West coast Deep House feel, crunchy hi hats and snares, low passed claps, and stretched vocals coming in and out throughout the track. Every now and then he puts in a somewhat odd, but fitting yawn to fill the gaps. The delayed groove in the baseline has an unintended Indie Disco touch to it.This all fits perfectly in the ensemble.
Suzanne Kraft’s remix of the latter starts promising with a fine groovy loop, consequently he (yes, it’s a he) slowly highlights the earlier mentioned Indie Disco baseline and adds an industrial sound and feel to it as what he is known for and why Suzanne in particular was asked for the remix. The track complements the original and finishes this Fantastic Man EP the way it’s supposed to.
Fantastic Man – Heartbreaker [Let’s Play House]
Fantastic Man – Zero [Let’s Play House]
Fantastic Man – Keep Out [Let’s Play House]
